Fortune's Legacy (2 page)

When he closed it, he saw the flash of irritation in her eyes, and enjoyed that, too.

“It's not.”

“Then what?”

He leaned back in his chair, propped his elbows on the arms and steepled his fingertips together as he studied her. She was still nervous, but a flash of something mutinous darted through her eyes.

“I called you in here to let you know that you're going to be reviewed early next week.”

Her blue-green eyes narrowed in suspicion. “My next review isn't due until October. Why now?”

He sat up, folded his arms atop the closed file and watched her. “I don't believe I'm required to give you a reason.”

Kyra nodded shortly and felt her temper spike. The
man was so calm, so controlled, she wanted to tear out her hair. There was something going on here, and she didn't have a clue what it was. Reviewed early meant one of two things: either she was going to be promoted—or fired.

Watching Garrett Wolff's closed expression didn't really give her any hints as to which way the wind was blowing on that score. But she had a pretty good idea where he would stand on the issue.

His pale blue eyes were steady on her and completely unreadable. It was as if that brief, electrical spark that had flashed between them hadn't even happened. Cold, she thought. He was cold, right down to the bone.

Too bad he looked so darn good. Garrett Wolff had blond hair that looked both too long and too tempting. He wore elegantly cut suits with the air of a pirate, and the swagger in his step was always just enough to make a woman either want to drool or kick him.

He was a presence at Voltage.

The bigwigs liked him. Trusted him.

Listened to him.

And he hated her.

She'd known that for months. Ever since she'd spoken up during a marketing meeting and said what everyone else had been thinking: that Garrett's ideas were outdated and too conservative.

Okay, she thought now, maybe not the best way to make a good impression on your boss. But she hadn't been trying to piss him off. Just make him see that she
had good things to offer. That if given a chance, she could make a difference at Voltage.

Now it looked as though all she'd done was earn the enmity of the one person who could make or break her career.

Swell.

Well then, if she was already sinking, she might as well go for broke.

“Look, I know you don't like me—”

He cut her off. “This isn't personal, Ms. Fortune.”

“The hell it isn't,” she snapped, surging to her feet as the tidal wave of anger carried her along in its wake. She was in this too deep now to start hedging her words or watching her step. Might as well be hanged for a lion as a lamb.

“Every time I make a suggestion for this company or take a stand against doing things the traditional way, you shoot me down.”

He stood up, too, and towered over her. Not easy, since she was by no means a tiny little thing. It irritated her, having to tilt her head back to glare at him, but she managed.

“You don't make ‘suggestions,' Kyra,” he countered, through gritted teeth. “You torpedo other people's ideas and then try to ram your own through, with all the tact and sensitivity of a rampaging army.”

“Is there something wrong with wanting to succeed?” She felt the temper bubbling inside her. Knew she should dial it down. Knew she should get a grip. But she just couldn't.

“Not as long as you don't eviscerate those who don't agree with you,” he retorted, his eyes snapping now with a temper to match her own.

“You just don't want anyone rocking the boat,” she challenged, planting her hands on the edge of his pristine desk and leaning toward him.

“And
you,
” he declared, doing a little leaning of his own, “don't have the patience to let things develop naturally.”

“What good is patience?” Kyra lifted one hand and pushed back a fringe of hair that had drifted into her left eye. “While we're being patient, Fortune TX, Ltd. will sweep in and hustle off our major clients.”

“They haven't yet,” he reminded her.

“That's not to say they won't.” Kyra stared him straight in the eye, unwilling now to back down from the precipice where her temper had carried her. “At Fortune, they're not afraid to take chances. To try something new. To foster their employees' imaginations.”

“Then maybe you're working for the wrong company, Ms.
Fortune.
”

She hissed in a breath. Ooh, that one hurt.

She pushed up from the desk. Folding her arms across her breasts, she concentrated for a full minute on inhaling and exhaling. She counted to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty.

Didn't work.

Still furious.

“Maybe you don't know this about me, Mr. Wolff, so let me be the first to tell you. I don't trade on my fam
ily name. It's for exactly that reason that I came to work for Voltage. I wanted to make it on my own talents. I've worked hard to earn my position here. And I'll work even harder until I have
your
job.”

He snorted a derisive laugh that had Kyra's hackles lifting.

“Is that a threat, Ms. Fortune?”

“That's a promise, Mr. Wolff.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

A tiny, tiny voice in the back of Kyra's brain was screeching, telling her that she was being an idiot. That she was risking everything she'd worked for by pissing off her boss.

But, she thought as she deliberately squashed that shrieking voice, at this point what did she have to lose? He already didn't like her. Maybe if he knew she was willing to stand up to him and fight for respect, he would, at least, admire her.

After several long seconds of silence ticked past, Kyra spoke again. “This review. You'll be doing it?”

He smiled again. “Yes.”

A cold chill snaked along her spine. “I won't make it easy on you.”

“What?”

“I know you want me fired.”

He shook his head. “Contrary to what you believe, you don't actually know everything.” He paused. “But the fact that you always act as if you do is irritating to some.”

She squirmed uncomfortably.

“And I will say,” he continued, “that maybe, Kyra, you've finally irritated the wrong people.”

Another chill caught her and she stiffened. Lifting her chin high and squaring her shoulders, she nodded briskly. “Think whatever you want to think, Mr. Wolff. But I'm damn good at my job. And my record will speak for itself.”

“We'll see, won't we?” he asked, and slowly sat down in his chair again. Picking up her employee file, he tucked it away in one of his desk drawers, then lifted his gaze to hers. “That's all for now. You can get back to work.”

She opened her mouth to say something more, but shut it again almost instantly. She'd already said way too much. And knowing Garrett Wolff, he wouldn't forget a word of it.

K
yra was still shaking as she left Garrett's office. She deliberately closed the door gently, wanting to kick herself for losing her temper. Hadn't she been told most of her life that her temper would only get her into trouble?

And for the most part, she reminded herself, she'd conquered that instinctive flash of anger that had prompted her into saying something she shouldn't too many times.

But that man, she thought grimly, could make a saint come storming out of heaven wielding thunderbolts.

“Are you all right, Ms. Fortune?”

Kyra's gaze snapped to Carol Summerhill, sitting at her desk. Short, with a lush figure, cropped, dark curly
hair and a simpering smile that irritated everyone around her, with the exception of Garrett. Carol wouldn't see forty again, but she hid the signs of her age with perfectly applied makeup. And she guarded her boss's office with the zeal of a rabid dog.

“I'm just fine,” Kyra managed to say through gritted teeth. “Thanks.”

“I only wondered,” Carol said slyly, “because you look a little…ill.”

Only because that's how she was feeling. Along with terrified, furious and worried. But she'd be damned if she'd let Carol know that.

“No,” she managed to answer, “I'm fine. Just a little warm. But thanks for your concern.” Which was, Kyra knew, as much a lie as the answer she'd just given the woman.

Sucking in a gulp of air, she tried to steady the nerves jumping in the pit of her stomach. Then she forced a smile she didn't feel, and headed past Carol's desk. No way was she going to let the woman know just how shaken she really was.

The office door behind her opened abruptly, and Kyra spun around to face Garrett again.

“Still here, Ms. Fortune?” he inquired wryly, one eyebrow lifted into a high arch.

“Just leaving,” she assured him.

“Good.” Dismissing her, he turned to his assistant. “Carol, come inside and bring your pad.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, leaping to her feet like a dolphin breaching the surface of a pool to grab at a tasty fish.

The woman had absolutely no dignity, Kyra thought as she watched Garrett disappear back into the inner sanctum. She ground her teeth as Carol paused, gave her a slow smile and shut herself in their boss's office.

Kyra glared at the closed door and did the only thing she could in that situation. She stuck out her tongue, then left as quickly as possible.

 

The building was quiet, most of the employees having left for home long before. From down the hall came the soft drone of a vacuum cleaner, and outside the bank of windows behind Kyra's desk, rain spattered against the glass.

Oblivious to the faint background sounds, Kyra bent over the open file on her cluttered desktop. Frowning in concentration, she flipped through the pages of the Hartsfield report, making notations on the pad at her right. With no distractions, no interruptions, she'd have the presentation ready by morning.

If Garrett Wolff was really going to fire her, it wouldn't be because he'd found fault with her work. A voice in the back of her mind muttered darkly about men with too much power. About the unfairness of it all. About how, despite how hard she tried, she would never really be good enough.

She swallowed and gripped her pen tightly in her fist. Whispers of self-doubt fluttered through her brain, but that was nothing new. Most of her life she'd covered up her fears with bravado. To the outside world, Kyra was a woman who knew exactly where she was going and just how to get there.

But inside, she was still the youngest child of a drunk. Unsure whom to trust. Unsure of her own abilities. Unsure of every damn thing.

“Okay,” she said softly, as she mentally smoothed the knot of nerves in the pit of her stomach. “That's enough of that.”

“Talking to yourself is not a good sign, you know.”

Kyra jumped in her chair, slapped one hand to her chest and took a deep breath in an effort to nudge her heart down out of her throat. Her pulse beat wildly as her gaze shot to the man in the open doorway of her office.

Garrett Wolff stood there watching her. Well, he was leaning more than standing. One shoulder was braced against the doorjamb, one foot crossed over the other. His arms were folded across his chest and his sharp gaze was fixed on
her.
God knew how long he'd been there.

“Let me guess,” she snapped, covering her own embarrassment with the familiar snarl of anger. “Instead of firing me, you decided to just scare me to death and save on the paperwork.”

He grinned, and the solid punch of it raced across the room and hit Kyra like a bolt of something hot and dangerous.

Oh,
so
not good.

She'd known the man for eight years, during which time he'd irritated her, annoyed her and just plain pissed her off. But she'd never, ever felt a flash of desire for him. Okay, sure, she'd noticed how gorgeous he was.

Heck, she'd have had to be blind to have missed that.

But noticing and
noticing
were two different things.

Shaking his head, he unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “It's eleven o'clock at night, Ms. Fortune. Why are you still here?”

Uncomfortable under that cool, steady stare, she shifted a little in her seat. She'd thought she was alone in the building. Well, except for the cleaning crew and the security guards.

She often stayed late at night, to catch up on work, to get a jump on the next day's tasks. She liked the quiet. Probably a holdover from living in a too-crowded house when she was a kid. Just remembering her father's sudden, unpredictable shouting rages could make her long for peace and quiet. But it was even more than that.

She liked knowing that she was alone and for a few hours could drop the pretense of always being in charge. Kyra knew darn well that most of her co-workers considered her an arrogant know-it-all.

Which would have been funny if it didn't bother her so much. God, she wished she
were
a know-it-all. School had never come easy to her. She'd always had to study twice as hard as anyone else to get the grades that had assured her of four years at Texas A&M.

And she'd worked even harder here at Voltage. Staring at Garrett now, though, Kyra wondered if all of her hard work had been for nothing. Frustrating to know that no matter how good her job performance, she could lose everything she'd been working toward because one man didn't like her.

Well, she wouldn't make it easy on him.

He was watching her now, still waiting for an answer
to his question. “I'm just working out a few details in the Hartsfield plan.”

One of his brows lifted. “Then you've managed to sign them on with Voltage?”

“Not yet,” she admitted, wishing she could say yes. “But soon.”

He nodded and straightened up, taking one or two steps into her office. “Good. But you don't have to work twenty-four hours a day, you know. Voltage really doesn't expect that of its employees.”

It was strange, having him here in her office. As far as she could remember, this was his first visit. And since she knew full well that her career was currently dangling by a thread, she didn't count this as a social call.

Which meant he had another reason altogether for dropping by in the middle of the night.

She only wished she knew what it was.

“Really?” she countered, tilting her head to one side and studying him as he walked the perimeter of her office. “Then why are
you
still here?”

“Touché.” He walked slowly around the room, examining the paintings on the wall, checking out the crystal vase of yellow roses on the credenza, and then finally stopping beside her desk.

He was too close for comfort. Kyra pushed her chair back from her desk so that she could give herself an extra foot or so of space and have an unobstructed view of the man.

His gaze locked on the night beyond the rain-spattered windows. Kyra waited, stubbornly refusing to be
the first one to break the silence that seemed to stretch tautly between them. At last she was rewarded.

He turned his head to look at her. “Why are you so driven?”

She blinked, surprised not only by the question, but by the genuine curiosity she heard in his deep voice. There were, of course, lots of answers to the query, none of which she was interested in sharing with her boss.

Especially a boss who made no secret of the fact that he didn't much like her. But she had to say something.

“Why is it when a woman works hard, she's driven. When a man does the same thing, he's just conscientious?”

The smile that curved his lips suddenly was gone almost before it was born, but in that instant something warm and liquid rushed through Kyra, despite her efforts to stop it.

“Good point,” he acknowledged. “But that doesn't answer the question.”

“Why do you care about the answer?”

“Call it professional curiosity,” he said with a slight shrug. “I see a young woman who should be out having a good time, and instead, she stays locked up in her office nearly every night.”

“And you know this how?”

His lips twitched. “I'm the boss. I'm supposed to know these things.”

He was keeping track of her? She didn't know what to think about that. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

“I'd like to point out,” she said cautiously, “that you're here in the middle of the night, too.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning his gaze back to the windows, When he continued, his voice was lower, more thoughtful. “But spending my nights in this building wasn't something I planned.”

“So go home.”

He turned his head to look at her again, and Kyra saw a half smile flash across his face before it disappeared again. “Good idea. How about we both go?”

He was being nice.

Why?

That swirl of emotion started in the bottom of her stomach again. Surprise flickered through her as she realized she was actually enjoying the sensation. There was something very…intimate about being here in the office alone with him. With the stormy night crouched outside and only a puddle of light from the lamp on her desk illuminating the room, it was as if they were the only two people in the world.

His presence seemed to make the room shrink in size. The walls seemed to close in around them. The tap of rain against the windowpanes was a steady, almost musical accompaniment to the silence stretching between them. She looked into his blue eyes and— Kyra caught herself and shook her head.

If Garrett was being nice, it was only to lull her into complacency before putting her head on the chopping block.

“I'm just going to finish up this last report,” she said, “and then—”

“Mr. Wolff?”

They both looked toward the doorway. Carol Summerhill stood there, watching them in obvious disapproval. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips were nothing more than a flat, grim line.

Kyra suddenly felt like a cheating wife caught sneaking out of a cheap motel. Stupid, she knew. But the look on Carol's face was that of a jealous woman. Weird.

Garrett, though, seemed more annoyed at the interruption than anything else. “Yes, Carol?”

The woman shifted her gaze from Kyra to their boss. “I only wanted to remind you that you have a teleconference at six in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

His tone, if not the words themselves, were dismissive, but Carol ignored both. “I'll walk out with you if you like.”

Geez, Kyra thought. Had the woman brought rose petals to toss down in front of him, too?

Garrett stiffened. “No, thanks. You go ahead.”

“Oh.”

Carol looked stupefied, as if she couldn't quite believe he'd chosen to remain and talk to Kyra rather than leave with her. Well, heck. Kyra was pretty surprised at that herself.

“I have a few things I need to discuss with Ms. Fortune,” Garrett said.

“I see.” Clearly, Carol didn't see and wasn't at all happy about it, either. But left with no other choice, she backed out and said, “I'll see you in the morning, then.”

“Fine.”

When they were alone again, Kyra chanced a look at Garrett. And she had to ask. “Do you really enjoy all the hero worship?”

He frowned at her. “What?”

She waved one hand at the empty doorway, then stood up to face him, feeling more in charge on her feet. “Carol. Your guard dog.”

He laughed shortly and the sound surprised Kyra. But the
real
surprise was suddenly realizing that he was even better-looking when he smiled.

Oh dear God.

Stop noticing these things, she told herself.

Shaking his head, he strolled slowly around her desk, idly lifting first her brass nameplate, then a framed picture of her and her brothers and sister. He held the photo and studied it as he spoke. “Carol's been with me for ten years and she's…territorial.”

“Yeah,” Kyra said. “Like a Doberman.”

“What do you mean?” Still holding the photo, he shot her a glance.

“Only that it's probably easier to get an audience with the Pope than it is to get in and see you.”

Frowning slightly, he said, “I didn't realize.”

Maybe he really didn't know how well Carol protected him from the people who worked for him. Maybe he was totally unaware that his assistant practically threw herself in front of his door to keep the unwashed at bay. But if he didn't know, he darn well should.

“You ought to get out more, General,” Kyra told him. “Visit with the troops.”

Thoughtfully, he nodded. “Maybe you're right.” Then he shifted his gaze back to the picture he still held. “Your family?”

“Yes.” She didn't have to look at the photo to know what he was seeing. A few months ago she and her siblings had gotten together for lunch, and Kyra had asked a waiter to take their picture. It wasn't often anymore that she, Susan, Vincent and Daniel were in the same place at the same time. Though they hadn't exactly been close when they were kids, in the last few years they'd all done some reaching out.